Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters addressed the UN Security Council at Russia's invitation on Feb. 8, condemning Moscow's invasion of Ukraine as illegal. He added, however, that it "was not unprovoked" and condemned "the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms." Waters also called on for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.
Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin often justified his full-scale invasion of Ukraine by saying Russia needed to "defend itself." However, there is no case of defense since Russia is waging a war of aggression in Ukraine.
Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya rebuffed the statements, playing on the title of one of Pink Floyd's most famous songs: "How sad for his former fans to see him accepting the role of just a brick in the wall, a wall of Russian disinformation and propaganda."
The Russian delegation’s invitation followed Waters' interview to the Berliner Zeitung in which he had been complimentary towards Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who he said, according to a translation on his own website, “governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government.”
Rogers repeats other Russia-orchestrated narratives in his Feb. 4 interview.
Rogers says that "Putin has always stressed that he has no interest in taking over western Ukraine – or invading Poland or any other country across the border. What he is saying is: he wants to protect the Russian-speaking populations in those parts of Ukraine where the Russian-speaking populations feel under threat from the far right influenced post-Maidan Coup Governments in Kiev."
Kiev was the internationally accepted English-language spelling of Ukraine's capital through the Soviet period and into the first years of this century. But, according to Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, director of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, the name "Kiev" is now associated with the Russification of Ukraine. In recent years, more and more publications and governments have switched the spelling to the Ukrainian variant, Khanenko-Friesen was quoted as saying by CBC.
To galvanize domestic support for Russia’s military aggression, Russian state-controlled media have tirelessly sought to vilify Ukraine, falsely accusing it of genocide in eastern Ukraine, drawing groundless parallels with Nazism and World War Two, and fabricating stories aimed at striking a negative emotional chord with audiences.
In fact, there is no evidence that Russian-speaking or ethnic Russian residents in eastern Ukraine face persecution at the hands of Ukrainian authorities. This has been confirmed in reports published by the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the OSCE.
In September, Waters wrote an open letter to First Lady Olena Zelenska calling on the West to stop providing arms to Kyiv, and accusing President Volodymyr Zelensky of allowing "extreme nationalism" in Ukraine.
During the council, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills, acknowledged Waters' "impressive credentials as a recording artist" but said his qualifications to speak on arms control or European security issues were "less evident".
Ukraine's Kyslytsia concluded by saying: “Keep strumming the guitar, Mr Waters. It suits you more than lecturing the security council on how to do its job. No flying pigs here, please.”
